Berlin's Ugly Wall

Updated Nov. 5, 1999 1:17 a.m. ET

By Paul Johnson, author, most recently, of "A History of the American People" (HarperCollins).

L ooking back on it, the Berlin Wall, which came down 10 years ago this month, was one of the most visible errors in history. In a way it summed up the whole of the Soviet Communist system and the empire it spawned. In the first place it was an aesthetic error. The great walls of history, though serving military purposes, have contained striking elements of grandeur. Hadrian's Wall in Britain, rising and dipping...